


Seven Inches of Blood

by okapi



Series: The Cup 'verse (Vampire Femlock) [4]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood, Cunnilingus, F/F, Fem!John - Freeform, Femlock, Frottage, Murder, Public Sex, Revenge, Story: The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax, Vaginal Fisting, Vampire Mycroft, Vampire Sherlock, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-07 12:57:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16408946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: When her online friend goes missing, John asks for Sherlock's help.Genderbent. Vampire!Sherlock/Human!John.Chapter 1 was for Kinktober 2018 Day 8 - Blood/Gore. Violence tag is Chapter 4. Off-screen murder is Chapter 5.





	1. After Midnight in Regent's Park

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The title, like this whole series, is a reference to Sheridan le Fanu's _Carmilla_ , in particular the line (about the death of Carmilla): _...and the leaden coffin floated with blood, in which to a depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed._

“Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be out after midnight?”

John was surprised. Not by the realisation she wasn’t alone nor the deep voice nor the question itself, all three of which were, objectively-speaking, ominous, menacing, and not a little disturbing.  No, she was surprised at herself.

How long had she been here?

She remembered going out for a walk at dusk, but she didn’t remember walking for more than five hours nor pausing to sit on her favourite bench in Regent’s Park.

It was a quiet spot, concealed by trees and far from foot traffic, the only interloper the occasional squirrel.

How funny.

John had been lost in thought, and her feet had brought her here. Sherlock had, no doubt, been more purposeful in her movements.

“I’m not worried,” said John. “I’ve a guardian angel.”

Sherlock emerged from the shadow looking like, in John’s biased opinion, the quintessential vampire: tall, lean, well-dressed, angular, aloof, oozing cool charm and austere sophistication as much as she did darkness and threat.

How a figure so outwardly alarming could inspire such feelings of warmth and reassurance in John was a mystery.

“Guardian, yes,” said Sherlock, circling the bench and taking a seat beside John’s knees, for John was, as was her habit, perched on the back on the bench with her feet in the seat.

“And I suppose,” Sherlock’s eyes flew to the canopy of branches and the muted light of a full moon obscured by clouds, “the best angels are fallen ones.”

“Were you searching for me?” asked John, anxious for a moment that she’d worried Sherlock.

“Would you believe I was in the neighbourhood and just happened to catch your scent on the breeze?”

“No.”

“Too bad.”

“You can smell my blood from far away, mine as opposed to other humans, I mean?”

Sherlock shot John a look of mock reproach. “John, don’t you know ‘blood will tell’?”

John laughed. “Very true, or so I’m told, but you can distinguish mine?”

“Can’t you smell baking bread from a distance?”

“Yes. Is it like that? Does my blood smell like bread?”

“Just a metaphor. But imagine you only ate bread. And imagine it was your favourite bread you smelled, hot and fresh out of oven, and then imagine that you were maddeningly in love with the baker?”

“All right, all right,” John said, hands raised in mock surrender. “I get it.”

Sherlock held out her arms. “Come here.”

The open space between seat and back of the bench meant that John could straddle Sherlock properly, face-to-face, with her legs dangling.

They kissed, Sherlock taking pains to suck greedily at John’s bottom lip as the kiss broke.

“Your lip swells so beautifully when bruised, John.”

John leaned in and let her suck some more.

“Pink and full,” Sherlock added.

“Engorged with blood that you are drawing to the surface, you vampire.”

John ran her tongue along her bottom lip and found it to be, indeed, quite plump.

Sherlock smirked, and John had the sudden urge to wipe that smirk from her undead face.

With a soft grunt, John crushed her mouth against Sherlock’s. She twined her fingers in Sherlock’s hair, the better to hold Sherlock’s kiss where she wanted it, the better to feast.

After a while, Sherlock pulled back and dipped her head and began to devour John’s neck.

Really, there was nothing quite like it, thought John. It was their specialty after all, wasn’t it?

Vampires. Necks.

John tilted in her head, offering Sherlock the choicest spot.

Sherlock bent and flicked the tip of her tongue at John’s fluttering pulse point, then proceeded to suck, without breaking the skin.

“Blood to the surface?” murmured John, thinking of purple splotches hidden beneath dark scarves.

“Oh, good, you follow,” replied Sherlock curtly.

Sherlock’s mouth travelled down on side of John’s neck, kissing, licking, and sucking, and up the other and then curled around to…

“Oh, god, that spot, Sherlock.”

Sherlock hummed. “Up ’til now? Just rehearsal, John.”

“Fuck!” breathed John over and over as Sherlock worried that spot, and its mirror point on the other side, with teeth and lips and tongue.

John’s hips started to roll a bit, seeking friction.

“So pink, so plump, so delicious,” breathed Sherlock.

John’s chest was rising and falling as Sherlock’s hands went to the zipper of John’s jacket and waited.

“Of course, I want more,” growled John, canting her hips impatiently.

“Ah, ah, ah,” said Sherlock, in a sing-song voice. “Consent is sexy, though please don’t tell any vampire I said so. It would ruin my reputation.”

“I suspect that your reputation is a curious one, seeing as how I’m still alive and unenthralled. And if any vampire, except Mycroft, came near enough for me to confess your secret, I’m quite certain you’d destroy them.”

“Well, there’s that,” admitted Sherlock. She unzipped John’s jacket and began unbuttoning John’s shirt.

“No bra, John?”

“I was distracted. Fu-u-u-ck!”

The cool air on John’s chest made her skin break out in gooseflesh, and Sherlock’s mouth on her nipple made a thin sheen of sweat erupt. The dual sensation was, quite frankly, maddeningly erotic.

John shamelessly arched her back and pulled the sides of shirt and jacket farther towards her sides, a wanton display of ‘please, fuck my tits’ if ever there was one.

“Bloody gorgeous,” said Sherlock as she switched to the other nipple. “So needy tonight, John.”

“I know.” John swallowed. “Maybe it’s the full moon?”

Sherlock hummed and licked down the valley of John’s cleavage. Then she ran her hands up John’s torso from ribs to breasts and cupped the latter.

John covered Sherlock’s hands with her own, urging Sherlock to squeeze harder. Sherlock obliged, pushing John’s breasts towards each other and letting them fall slack; then she bit each nipple in turn.

John whimpered. She offered Sherlock one, then the other, and Sherlock sucked hard, releasing each with a wet pop.

Sherlock then pulled back and studied John with an obsidian stare, dark, hard, and shining. One hand was still cupping one of John’s breasts and one thumb was still teasing John’s pebbled bud, but Sherlock brought the other hand up, up, up, until the V between her thumb and index finger was resting at base of John’s throat.

“Such trust,” she observed when John tilted her head back and slowly closed her eyes.

There wasn’t a flicker of fear in John’s body; on the contrary, she was feeling nothing but lusty impatience. She rolled her hips once, twice, thrice and let her head loll in Sherlock’s grasp.

“Would you like to drink, Sherlock?”

Sherlock shook her head. “I’m quite full.”

John frowned. “You fed…a week…ten days…ago?”

Sherlock grunted noncommittally.

“Of course, I trust you, Sherlock. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

One corner of Sherlock’s mouth twitched. “My epitaph. Oh, wait, no, it wasn’t.”

John reveled in Sherlock’s touch, in her nearness, in her power.

“You won’t hurt me, Sherlock. You could murder me at any time, but you don’t.”

“Your mortality is my chief source of anxiety, John—preserving it, however, not ending it.”

Sherlock drew her hand back down John’s body to her waist, steadying her as she rocked.

John growled and repeated Sherlock’s caress of earlier, dragging her own hands up her torso to her breasts, then kneading and fondling them.

“So delightfully needy,” observed Sherlock once more. “Really, I must run across you on a full moon more often.”

It was a pornographic tableau, to be certain, but John didn’t care; in fact, she was about to make it more so.

She opened her jeans, wrenching the sides as far as the stiff denim would allow.

Sherlock sunk one curled finger beneath John’s pants, gently brushing the topmost fringe of her pubic hair. “Such a beautiful pussy,” she whispered in John’s ear. “Pettable, suckable, kissable, fuckable…”

John brought her nipple to Sherlock’s lips and watched as Sherlock suckled hungrily. The finger in John’s pants continued to move back and forth, teasing, wanting, or so John imagined, to dip lower but prevented by clothing and position.

“There’s another bud that’s swelling, Sherlock. It wants to come out to play, too.” It was a whine, but John was too far gone to be ashamed.                                                                                                                                   

“No one’s watching. No one will bother us,” assured Sherlock, her lips now pressed against the slope of John’s breast.

It took two extra steadying hands to help John untangle herself from Sherlock’s lap. She hurriedly shucked out of her boots, her jeans, her pants, and, despite the cool night, even her jacket.

Sherlock, when she wasn’t helping John stay upright, removed her coat. When John saw this, she rid herself of her shirt as well.

Nude, she crawled back into Sherlock’s lap and began to rut at once against Sherlock’s thigh. Sherlock hung the Belstaff about John’s shoulders.

John wrapped her arms around Sherlock’s neck. “Fuck, fuck, fuck…”

Sherlock held John close, one hand keeping the coat in place, the other gripping John’s buttock.

“…I want to come with my tit in your mouth, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s lips had no sooner clamped ‘round John’s nipple than John was grinding hard against Sherlock’s thigh.

“There’s another,” she breathed, “another little one, oh, Sherlock, please…”

Sherlock swirled her tongue around John’s nipple and sucked hard.

John pulled away as she came again, Sherlock’s teeth scraping her sensitive bud. Then she collapsed forward. “Oh, that’s good!” she moaned, clenching her body ‘round Sherlock’s. She buried her face in the side of Sherlock’s neck as the aftershocks rippled through her.

Then John was being lifted and turned and placed gently on the bench atop the Belstaff, and then Sherlock was sliding down John’s body and burying her face between John’s legs.

John spread her thighs as wide as she was able without trembling from the strain. Sherlock’s hands supported her while Sherlock’s mouth devoured her.

And just then, the clouds decided to part, and moonlight bathed John’s nude figure.

What a picture we make, thought John.

The beauty of the scene wasn’t lost on Sherlock, either.

“You’re a work of art, John,” she murmured into the crease where John’s leg met her pelvis. “ _Woman being eat out by a vampire after midnight, Regent’s Park_ ,” she added, as if reading from a museum plaque.

John gazed raptly at the moon as Sherlock, avoiding John’s over-sensitive clit, tongue-fucked John’s cunt.

“What’s that quote I like? From the film?” mumbled John. “ _Frankenstein_?”

Sherlock’s voice was muffled. “Love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine, rage the likes of which you would not believe. Satisfy one, indulge the other.”

“Tonight, we satisfy the one.”

“Indeed.”

As Sherlock wasn’t at feed and John herself wasn’t keen to climax again so soon, it was brief and more an act of intimacy than pleasure.

Sherlock lifted John’s body, and their positions reversed for the second time.

In moments, John was, once more, curled in Sherlock’s lap, with one side pressed tight to Sherlock’s form and the other tilted away, that Sherlock might run a possessive hand from John’s neck down to breast and waist and hip and thigh and back up again.

John looked up and kissed Sherlock’s mouth, tasting her own sex on lips and tongue.

After a few minutes of companionable silence, Sherlock drew the coat tighter ‘round John in a chivalrous gesture and asked,

“What’s bothering you, John?”

“How—?”

“John, please, I’m your lover, flatmate, and friend. As well as, in some respects, your parasite. I’m also the world’s only consulting vampire detective. Taken all together that mean that I’m supernaturally observant and supernaturally interested in your wellbeing. You’ve been worried about something for five days, something that was first brought to your attention online. It’s about someone you care about—”

“How do you know that?”

“The John Watson I know doesn’t fret for five days over materials things.”

John bit her lip, then said, “You are a detective…”

“Yes! Thank you for noticing!” quipped Sherlock. “Nothing gets by you!”

John snorted. “When we get back to the flat, Sherlock. I want the green chair, the client’s chair, even though I know you’ll say it’s nothing or, worse, laugh at me.”

“Something’s been worrying you for five days? No. I’ll laugh _with_ you if we _prove_ it’s nothing.”

John nodded and leaned up for another kiss.

All while they had been talking, Sherlock hand had kept up its caress, running almost the full-length of John’s body.

John raised one knee high and propped her foot against the slat of the bench. She stopped Sherlock’s hand when it brushed her damp pubic hair.

“Finger me a bit?”

Sherlock smiled and sank an index finger into John’s cunt. John canted her hips a bit into Sherlock’s hand.

“Two, please.”

They both looked down to watch.

Sherlock pulled her finger out, and it made a foul wet noise that excited John to no end.

Sherlock then replaced one with two and then, at John’s urging, three. Once inside John, her fingers alternated between thrusting in and out and gently twisting and curling.

Sherlock caught John’s gaze. “More?” she asked in a soft puff of breath.

“All of it,” pleaded John.

* * *

“I didn’t know I liked this, Sherlock.”

“Neither did I.”

“I’m so full.”

“Mine’s not a petite hand, John, and I have to say I’m quite fascinated by how you take it.”

“You haven’t done any of your magic?”

Sherlock shook her head and said with unabashed awe. “It’s all you, John.”

“Thank goodness you had lube in your coat pocket.”

“Henceforth, I shall never be without it.”

John laughed and came, with tears pooling in the corner of her eyes and her body quaking ‘round Sherlock’s fist.

* * *

John accepted Sherlock’s help in dressing.

“Not that I’m complaining, Sherlock, but it is strange that we’ve been fucking for the better part of two hours in a public park after midnight and haven’t heard a peep from anything or anyone.”

“Well, the police have cordoned off this section of the park, John.”

“What?! What for?”

“There have been reports of a man-eating puma. I suppose that explains the lack of squirrels and whatnot about, too. After all, pumas are fairly high on the food chain.”

“A man-eating puma on the loose in Regent’s Park?!”

They looked at each other, then John’s expression became reproachful.

“Oh, Sherlock!”

“He wasn’t a very nice man, John. Not nice at all.”

“Sherlock.”

“And if it’s any consolation, John, he was quite literally foul. I’ve the worst case of indigestion. Ugh!” She grimaced and put a fist to her sternum.

John giggled. “Is that true, Sherlock?”

“No, vampires don’t’ get indigestion. But he was foul, John. I shan’t tell you what he did, but he got everything he deserved.”

“I shan’t ask. So, you were telling the truth: you were just in the neighbourhood and you are quite full?”

“Honesty _is_ the best policy. Home, John?”

“Yes, and let’s not spare the horses.”


	2. The Myserious Lady_F

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John worries about an online friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get myself in the mood to finish this thing. It was a good idea but it's going stale very quickly since Hallowe'en's passed.

“I met her online. She’s an artist or at least she likes to draw and paint. We enjoy the same kind of stories, you know, mystery, detective, supernatural, horror. We decided to do this thing for October. There’s one prompt a day, a word, a phrase, sometimes a quote or a piece of music. On the odd days, I write a tiny story or a scene, nothing long, a hundred, two hundred words, sometimes more. And she draws something inspired by my words or by the prompt itself. And on the even days, she draws something first, and I write a story about it. We’d been chatting about it for weeks, and the first week was great, back and forth. And then she just disappeared. And it’s been five days. And I don’t know. It’s all online so I don’t know anything but her user name, Lady_F. I keep telling myself it’s none of my business. She could be sick, busy, without internet for some reason, a million things. It could be anything.”

“Then why are you worried?”

“Because we chat sometimes. She mentioned an old boyfriend. Not really a boyfriend, but someone she knew when she was young. He’s been carrying a torch for her for something like twenty years. And he showed up recently. She was, I think, a bit frightened of him. The way she made him sound…” John scowled.

“How?”

“Entitled.”

“Ah.”

“So, is it nothing, Sherlock?”

“Could be nothing. Could be something. Worth investigating.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re worried. And your instincts are good.”

* * *

“I like her a lot. And she’s a great artist. Look.”

Sherlock leant over John’s shoulder looking at the computer screen.

John clicked, then she heard Sherlock’s breath catch. She smiled.

“I know, right? That is how we met. I saw some of her art online and commissioned her to do a portrait of you. And she made that—all from just my description of you—and it’s bloody marvelous.”

“It _is_ good,” agreed Sherlock. “And, of course, all she had was description. I haven’t shown up in a photograph or mirror or any other reflective surface in more than a hundred years. All right. My first step will be to gather as much information as possible online and arrive at an answer or a plan before dawn.” Sherlock glanced at the window. “I’ve two hours yet. Anything personal here you’d rather me not see?”

John shook her head. “I told her you were my girlfriend.”

John looked up. Sherlock wrinkled her nose.

“I know,” said John. “Sometimes ‘girlfriend’ seems all right; sometimes it seems wholly inadequate.”

Sherlock ruffled John’s hair affectionately. “Kip on the sofa. I’ll either wake you or, if it really is nothing, I’ll leave a note and let you sleep.”

“Thank you, Sherlock. I really do appreciate it.”

John took Sherlock’s hand, squeeze it then kissed her palm.

“Don’t thank me yet, John.”

“But you listened. The average, ordinary person would’ve dismissed my fears or, worse, laughed at me.”

“If you told the average, ordinary person that you live with a vampire who feeds on your menstrual blood what would they say?”

“Well, there is that,” said John with a chuckle                                            

“There’s nothing average or ordinary about either of us, John. And I quite fancy Lady_F’s art, so it won’t be a hardship to take a closer look at it. Or her.”

* * *

It was quite nice to be awakened by a vampire. Sherlock had a way of slipping into John’s muddled dreams and gently tugging her to consciousness. It was like a sunrise in a Greek epic or one of those fancy alarm clocks that only glowed but, somehow, all within John’s mind.

John sniffed and snorted and rubbed her eyes and sat up.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Come.”

“Ironically, in her profile, she calls herself ‘drifting and friendless,” but she’s mistaken. She’s got at least one friend, you, and even more by my researches. Here she is. Lady_F is Lady Frances Carfax.”

“She’s beautiful. But ‘Lady?’”

“Not just a username. She’s the sole survivor of the late Earl of Rufton. The last derelict of what used to be a goodly fleet.”

John gave a long whistle.

“And I very much fear some evil has come to her, John.”

“Really?”

“It’s not just with you she’s broken contact. There’s an old girlfriend named Dobney in Camberwell. Lady Francis has been corresponding regularly with her for the past four years, and also, all of a sudden, there’s been nothing. I’ve been in contact with Dobney, and she’s just as anxious as you are.”

“So where is Lady_F now?”

“First step is the tried and true rule of ‘follow the money.’ Single ladies must live, and their passbooks are compressed diaries.”

“Passbooks?”

“It’s a phrase.”

“A very old one.”

“I believe the proper retort is ‘it takes one to know one.’”

John smiled and kissed the top of Sherlock’s head. “So, what does our Lady’s passbook say about her.”

“Last known address was Hôtel National at Lausanne. She paid a handsome bill and left there at the beginning of the week without giving any forwarding address. One check has been drawn since.”

“To whom and where?”

“Fifty pounds. To Miss Marie Devine. This young lady.”

John whistled again. “Well, there are many reasons why one might give a girl like that fifty pounds.”

Sherlock shot John a look, which John deflected with a shrug.

Sherlock turned back to the computer screen.

“Lady_F lives off on her inheritance. She also has some remarkable old Spanish jewelry of silver and curiously cut diamonds to which she is fondly attached.”

“Ah, yeah. I have seen her pictures of it. So you think someone’s after her money or her jewels?”

“Quite possibly. She isn’t exactly shy about them. And speaking of her art, did Lady_F ever mention religion?”

“No. I mean, I got the impression she was like me, a very lapsed Catholic, but now that I think about it, no, she never mentioned church or any kind of spiritual beliefs.”

“It might be nothing. I simply noticed a sort of,” Sherlock shook her head slightly, “evangelical note in her recent work. So Lady_F has definitely gone off the radar. And then there’s Phillip Green. Nice-looking fellow, eh?”

“God, that beard. I hate him already.”

“He believes Lady Frances has remained single all sainted days just for his sake alone.”

“Ugh.”

“Indeed. He’s made some money in South Africa and by his own accounts got rid of the so-called ‘coarseness’ to which Lady_F objected in their youths, and now he is intent on seeking his true love out and ‘softening’ her. He’s got as far as Lausanne. Here some of his rantings on reddit.”

John read and grimaced. “Ugh, ugh, ugh.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think he’s hurt her?”

“Perhaps, but I’m not certain he’s found her—yet,” replied Sherlock. Then she added in an icy tone, “But if he has found her and he has hurt her, I am quite certain that he’s unaware of how _involuntary_ his _celibacy_ can be.”

John chuckled despite herself. “You like her, too, don’t you?”

“Yes, and I’d like to help her.” Sherlock glanced toward the window. “But I haven’t much time, John.”

“I want to go to Lausanne, Sherlock.”

“I thought you might.” Sherlock produced a plastic card and laid it on the desk beside the computer. “There’s a flight to Geneva this morning, then you can rent a car. Text me everything, John, and I shall help you as soon as waning daylight permits. Please…”

“I can take care of myself, love,” said John, sliding into Sherlock’s lap. “I’m hardly a stray chicken in a world of foxes, and if someone tries to gobble me up…”

“There shall be, quite literally, hell to pay,” said Sherlock. “Good luck.”


	3. Enter the Incel.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bit of frottage at the end.

“Are you a private dick?” asked Marie Devine, who, despite her suspicious tone, accepted the drink John had bought her without reservation.

“Do I look like a private dick?” retorted John dryly.

“The little notebook gives you away, luv. You ain’t a reporter ‘cause I ain’t got any scoops.” She flicked her cigarette against the edge of the ashtray and rolled her shoulders back, a practiced gesture which served to lift and drop her breasts in a manner that was not without its charm.

“I’m just looking for someone.”

She gave a weary sigh. “Ain’t we all, luv?”

John smiled in spite of herself but persisted in her inquiry. It had been two days since she left London, and she wanted to be closer to finding Lady_F than she was.

“So, Frankie? Fifty quid?” she pressed.

Through fabulously false eyelashes, Marie Devine stared hard at John. John, for her part, didn’t mind in the least being stared hard at; it was one of the consequences of living with a preternaturally observant vampire.

Three sips and it was out.

“Wedding gift. For me and Jules.”

John nodded. “But you were with Frankie when she left Lausanne for Baden?”

“Yeah. We didn’t travel together to Baden. She went her way, I went mine, but we met back up for a bit. You know, some habits are hard to break.”

“I do, indeed. Any other reason she didn’t travel with you?”

“She didn’t want it known she was going to Baden.”

“Known by whom?”

“I don’t know his name. English. Beard. Nasty bit of goods. That’s what we fought about. She wouldn’t tell me anything about him. Not one word. I saw him in Lausanne. I saw him in Baden. I was worried about her, but I was worried about me, too. That kind of bastard isn’t too particular about, what do you call it?”

“Collateral damage?” suggested John.

“Yeah, something like that. Jules called him ‘ _un vértiable sauvage_ ,’ but that’s just fancy for ‘tosser.’ But worse than tosser, I think. I saw him grab her by wrist, and you just know, right?”

“Yup,” said John, nodding.

“She was out of sorts from the minute he showed up in Lausanne and it only got worse in Baden. Irritable. Not sleeping. Drinking a bit too much. Very hard to please.” She purred the final word, then looked John up and down. “You hard to please, luv? I bet not.”

John made a gesture toward the bartender for another round and said,

“Exceedingly.”

Marie Devine chuckled, then took a drag from her cigarette. “He’s the reason she went off with those holy rollers back home. That was the last straw. I can’t put up with a lot but not that lot.” She pulled a face. “That was the last row. I was outta there.”

John’s eyebrows rose. She let the notebook fall onto the bar.

“Home? You mean she went back to England?!”

“Supposed to. With the Reverend and Mrs. Shlessinger.” Marie Devine made a gagging noise, then shuddered, a move that might have also charmed John if she hadn’t been so startled by what she’d just heard.

“Missionaries,” added Marie Devine.

“Missionaries?!” echoed John with undisguised incredulity.

“I know, right? But it was all to get away from him—HIM!”

Marie Devine pointed. John turned.

A huge man with a bristling black beard was entering the bar.

“Well, speak of the devil and he appears.”

The man’s eyes widened when he spotted John and Marie Devine, but he turned on his heel and left the bar.

“Thanks,” said John as she closed the little notebook and stuck it and her tiny pen in her back pocket.

John rushed out into the night. She looked both ways along the street, then saw the hulking figure in the distance. She followed as close as her eyes and her caution permitted.

He disappeared down a side street.

Or so John thought.

John approached slowly. She turned and saw nothing.

Then, suddenly, there he was, looming over her.

“Phillip Green?”

“What’s it to you?” he replied with a scowl.

Best defense is a good offense.

“Where’s Frankie?” John spat.

At the question, menace transformed into fury, and his hand was on John’s throat, closing her airway with a grip of iron.

“What have you done with Frankie? What’s she to you? Tell me now!” he growled.

John smelt the liquor on his breath and knew he was a tosser. Only a tosser would demand you speak and prevent you from speaking at the same time.

John felt her senses begin to abandon her and then—

WHOOSH!

“Please don’t, Mister Green. I’m Sherlock Holmes, and this is my girl.”

Oh, thank God.

The hand was gone. John coughed.

“Holmes?” He stepped back, then turned to John. “I’m sorry.”

John swallowed, then raised her gaze just as Sherlock stepped into the light.

John blinked, then looked away.

As a vampire, Sherlock could change form. John had seen her as a monster when she’d battled the devil. She’d also seen her as a black cat.

And now she was a man.

John struggled not to betray her surprise, but she lost the battle with what was said next.

“Johanna’s been following up some leads for me, and we’ve got some answers for you.”

Not once.

Not once since they’d met in the hospital, since that fateful night after John had received the blood transfusion that Sherlock had earmarked for her dinner.

And in that voice, that deep baritone, it sounded even more disturbing.

John was shaken to her core, but the conversation continued.

“Answers? That was quick. All right. Pint?”

“Yeah,” said Sherlock.

* * *

“Cheers,” said Phillip Green. “To finding Frankie.”

John didn’t know this Sherlock, who drank pints and smoked, and she didn’t like him. She told herself it was a role, just a role, that Sherlock was donning for some reason that would become clear.

When they’d set their pints down, Phillip Green turned to John.

“When you accused me of hurting Frankie, I lost my temper. I do that a lot these days. It’s just Frankie disappearing has got my nerves all shot to pieces. You see, I’ve loved her since we were kids, loved her with all my heart. I was a wild one, though, and Frankie, well, back then, her mind was as pure as snow. When she heard about some of the things I’d done, just ‘boys will be boys’ stuff, she snubbed me. But she knew one day I’d make something of myself and come back for her. And I did. And I am, coming back for her, that is. Now I’ve just got to find her and make her see reason.”

“And that’s where I come in,” said Sherlock with a smile John knew to be nothing like the real one. “That’s why you hired me. I have to say I was very moved by your story. Reminds me of when Johanna and I first met. Love at first sight, of course. Johanna wasn’t convinced, but I wore her down after a while.”

John stomached turned, but she kept a smile plastered on her face.

“Then you get it, Sherlock. You understand where I’m coming from. Honestly, I didn’t expect results so soon, but I’m grateful. So, where is she? Where’s Frankie?”

“Johanna?” said Sherlock with a wave of her hand and another fake smile.

“She’s gone to London with a pair of missionaries by the name of Schlessinger,” said John in a voice she didn’t quite recognise as her own.

“Who told you that?” asked Phillip Green gruffly.

“Marie Devine,” answered John.

“I knew it! I was just on my way to talk to that bitch.”

“It was better to let Johanna do it,” said Sherlock. “She’s good with bitches.”

The words, the face, the voice, all made John want to vomit and run away and wash herself, inside and out, with bleach.

“To London, then?” asked Philip Green.

“Yes, we’ll pick up the scent there. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

“Best news I’ve had in a week. I can’t thank you enough, Sherlock. Cheers.”  

Then they chatted, Sherlock and Phillip Green, while John nursed her beer and only spoke when spoken to by Sherlock.

They chatted about football and rugby, about films and celebrities, about books and beer and travel and stupid things on the internet.

John marveled at the inanity that spewed from Sherlock’s lips, but mercifully, a third round was declined.

“Got to get an early start tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Probably a good idea, but I’ll have a couple more before calling it a night.”

As they left the pub, Sherlock put a hand on John’s lower back and guided her out into the street. She dropped it when they reached the first cross street.

“I’m sorry, John.”

“You have your reasons,” said John, sounding sulkier than she would have liked.

“Doesn’t make it less painful. Phillip Green is useful, at least at this stage of the case, and the easiest way to win his confidence is to be someone like him. If reddit rantings are to be believed, he doesn’t see women as his equals. Lady Frances he puts on a pedestal, and the rest, he consigns to the gutters. My usual persona wouldn’t do.”

John nodded. “It made me think of…”

“How we met?”

“Yes.”

They walked in silence for a while.

“You think he’s telling the truth when he says he doesn’t know where Frankie is?”

“Yes. I think if he knew, he’d be harassing her instead of you.”

John’s hand instinctively fluttered to her own neck.

Sherlock stepped closer and whispered, “The _Honourable_ Phillip Green—” she responded to John’s quick glance with a soft, “Oh, yes, my little thief, he’s _that_ kind of arsehole—as I was saying, when his utility with respect to finding Lady Frances Carfax has expired, I will make my displeasure as his ‘loss of temper’ known, as only one creature accustomed to violence can to another of the same ilk.”

John shivered.

“Are you a violent creature, Sherlock?”

It was a rhetorical question. Nevertheless, Sherlock replied.

“Yes, of course. But that violence will again never be directed at you, John, and I apologise specifically for having called you something other than your name.”

“None of it was pleasant, but I know why you did it.”

“Good.”

“So, what’s next?”

“I may need you to go back to Baden in the morning. I have questions about the Schlessingers. If I can find the answers online, so much the better. I wasn’t lying to Phillip Green: I do think Frankie’s in London. So, either way, you should be back in London by the day after tomorrow at the latest, which is good because I miss you desperately. Last night was horrid.”

John’s lips twitched. “How are you even here, Sherlock? Did you fly? Or teleport?”

“Bit of both. But the farther I am from my base, that is, the place where I rest,” she didn’t say ‘coffin,’ but then she didn’t have to, “the weaker I am, and I must return before sunrise.”

When they reached the hotel, John turned to face Sherlock for the first time since they’d left the bar.

“Oh, thank God,” she breathed.

Sherlock was her old shape again.

“You didn’t think I was going to stay like that, did you?” said Sherlock. “I owe you a thousand apologies, John. I treated you abominably.”

“That’s enough, Sherlock.”

They stood there, John looking smug, Sherlock feigning nonchalance.

Finally, John put Sherlock out of her misery.

“Would you like to come up, Sherlock?”

Sherlock exhaled a sigh of relief. “Thank you for the invitation. Barging in would be…”

“Barbaric,” supplied John.

* * *

“Thank you. That feels much better,” said John, feeling gingerly ‘round her neck. “But I hope you aren’t wasting the energy you need for your return trip on this.”

They were in bed, curled towards one another.

“Easing your pain is not a waste, John, but I am being cautious. That’s another reason why I didn’t confront Green more directly when he assaulted you. I would’ve had to drain him completely to make up the balance.”

John yawned. “I’m tired, Sherlock. I spent last night on a train, three trains, in fact, and despite the lovely violin solo lullaby that filled my dreams, there’s nothing like sleeping flat. My notes of the last two days are there,” she waved at the notebook she’d thrown on the desk, “so’s the laptop.”

“Rest. I’ll text you before I leave. _John_.” Sherlock’s voice cracked at the last.

John slid closer and draped her arm around Sherlock’s shoulders. She kissed the side of Sherlock’s face: jaw, cheek, the crease of her eye, temple. Sherlock nuzzled against John’s neck.

“A little good night fuck?”

“All the fucks you want, regardless of size.”

John smiled. “And if I fall asleep before the end, will you, uh, finish things while I sleep?”

“You want me to touch you?”

“If I don’t come on my own. Anywhere. Everywhere. Just play with me. In my mind, too, if you’d like. Gentle, though.”

“You’re certain?”

John hummed. “I want to rub the edge off. The spirit’s willing, but the flesh, you know, weak.”

Two sets of hands worked to peel off John’s sports bra as she rolled on top of Sherlock.

John yanked down the front of her pants, then cupped her breast and pressed it to Sherlock’s lips.

Then she rutted against Sherlock as Sherlock sucked her nipple and squeezed her arse.

“I’ve missed you, too, Sherlock.”

John came, then at once, tipped over into sleep; the last sensation to register in her conscious thought was Sherlock’s fingertips moving fastidiously against her skin, carefully straightening her pants and eased her onto her side and drawing the bedclothes snug around her.


	4. Comeuppance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exit a demon. Warning for blood and violence.

“Well, now that you mention it…”

Of course, thought John, keeping her eyes on her notebook so as not to roll her eyes. It was a quintessential Sherlock Holmes moment, even if Sherlock Holmes wasn’t present. An off-the-wall question was posed, one John had been instructed to ask, about the missionary’s ear of all things, and it got a half-surprised response that started, ‘Well, now that you mention it…’

“…he did have a funny kind of ear, kind of jagged or torn, poor thing. He was in a bad way, got a bad case of malaria when he was in South America, but those two girls were like ministering angels, the way they took care of him,” said the manager of the Englischer Hof.

“And they all three went back to England on the 8th?”

“Yep. In that bloody hearse.”

“Hearse?!”

“Well, It was painted with this church business on the side like it was a lorry or something, but if you gave it a second look, you could see it was a hearse all right. The back was all dark, like it had a coffin in it. He paid extra to park it ‘round back, but it gave me the creeps, it did.”

John frowned and shook her head and scribbled in her notebook. “So, missionaries. They’re always hard up. Did they canvas for donations or try to drum up support?”

“They tried, passing out their pamphlets and whatnot, but I shut them down. No solicitation.”

“You don’t happen to still have any of the pamphlets.”

“Nah, what they didn’t get rid of, we did after they left. But there might still be one pinned to the wall by the loo.”

There was. And it was in John’s pocket as she boarded the plane in Geneva.

* * *

“It is as I thought,” said Sherlock as she perused the pamphlet. “He’s a demon.”

“A demon!” exclaimed John. “A real demon?”

“Or incubus, if you prefer a gendered term.”

“Holy fuck!”

“No, John. Holy Peters.”

“What?”

“That’s his name. One of them, at least.”

John snickered. “Is the other Knavish Knobs?”

Sherlock shot her a look but continued, “I never met an incubus who was greedier for material wealth than Holy Peters. Incubi and succubi are usually just interested in sex with humans, I think Peters, in truth, would much prefer the cash.”

“Wait, you know him, this specific demon?”

“Social media’s wonderful. I’ve been looking up the recent Reverend Schlessinger on the internet, and I thought I recognised him. There wasn’t a shot or a description of his ear, however, so, thank you. That’s seals it.”

“All demons have torn ears?”

“This one does. He got it in a saloon-fight in Adelaide in ’99.”

“How on earth do you know that?”

“Because Mycroft gave it to him,” said Sherlock with a chuckle. “When we first became vampires, we got the rogue notion that life in the penal colonies might be easier for us. Spoiler: it wasn’t.”

“God, you mean 1899.”

“Naturally, John. It’s rare for demons to work in pairs. I suspect that his so-called wife is human and the demonic equivalent of a thrall.” Her expression was suddenly somber.

“All right. But don’t sugarcoat it: what are the chances that Frankie is still alive?”

“Slim. He wants her money, that’s for certain. That has always been Peters’ specialty, swindling women out of their fortunes.”

“Her antique jewelry.”

“That’s probably what first attracted him. He’s taken that by now, naturally, but he probably won’t be satisfied until he has the rest of her money, too. Greedy.”

“A will in his favour of his missionary charity? Then he offs her?”

“That’s my best guess right now. But if he also wants Lady Frances as a replacement for his wife, he may have already enthralled her.” She shrugged, and her voice waivered a bit when she added, “That can be undone.”

“All right. How do we find this demon, and when we find him, how do we kill him?”

“Ebay, among other sites, and,” Sherlock reached under the sofa and pulled out an axe, “this.”

John stared.

_Ping!_

“Oh, here we go,” said Sherlock, handing John the axe as she herself leaned closer to the coffee table and the computer perched atop a pile of books. She read the screen intently.

_Beep!_

Sherlock tore her attention from computer to mobile. She nodded, then murmured, “When it rains, it pours, John. Let’s see if there’s a connection.” She began typing, then clicking furiously, and John knew better than to disturb her until she was finished.

“Same place,” declared Sherlock triumphantly. Then she rose and reached for her coat. “I’ll explain the rest on the way.”

“They way to where?”

“No. 36, Poultney Square, Brixton and, hopefully, the still-breathing, unpossessed Lady Frances Carfax.”

* * *

They held hands and raced through London under Sherlock’s supernatural power.

“I set our friend Phillip Green on the task of surveillance of possible places, online markets as well as brick-and-mortar pawnbrokers, where Peters would sell the jewelry while I kept watch on Lady Frances’ solicitor and researched Reverend Schlessinger, both the recent and the not-so-recent incarnations. I think Peters is ready to make his move. Green just discovered someone trying to sell a silver pendant of old Spanish design matching the description of one of Lady Frances’ pieces and I just detected an email sent from someone claiming to be Lady Frances requesting an alteration to her will. I traced both to the same address. That’s where we’re going.”

“Wait a minute, I’m confused. Who’s the not-so-recent Schlessinger?”

“I call the demon we’re after Holy Peters because that’s what he called himself in ’99. Like any demon, he requires a body to inhabit and being a rather lazy and unimaginative legion when it comes to anything but seducing lonely, wealthy women, he usually just adopts the persona of whomever he’s inhabiting. And, for some reason, he likes men of the cloth. There was a young missionary named Schlessinger, buried in Highgate, no less. I visited the grave. It looked a bit freshly stirred for someone who was supposed to have been laid to rest over a hundred years ago.”

“But what about the ear? An Edwardian missionary wouldn’t necessarily have a torn ear.”

“Oh, he’d love to get rid of his tell-tale ear, but the way he got it…” Sherlock shook her head and smiled grimly. “He can’t.”

“Huh. So, what’s the plan when we get there, Sherlock?”

“The first order of business is to find Lady Frances, of course. Phillip Green is meeting us there—”

“What?! No, fuck that, Sherlock! No way I’m going to let that bastard—”

“She’ll be safe with him at the outset, John. And we need help. If Lady Frances is still alive, I’m guessing Peters won’t give her up without a fight. I will distract him while you take the axe and look for his resting place. Demons are rather like vampires in that respect. In Peters’ case, he can’t roam too far from the Schlessinger coffin, dug up from Highgate Cemetery.”

“A coffin! The manager of the Englischer Hof said that Peters and his wife and Frankie left in a hearse.”

“Precisely. He’d have to have it with him, as odd as it seems. Chop up the Schlessinger coffin and Peters loses his immortality, meaning, of course, he’s exceedingly susceptible to destruction by vampires or anything else. It’s very dangerous, but as a vampire, I can’t do it myself and, of course, we can’t trust the task to Green.”

“Ah,” said John. “Thus, the axe.”

“Yes.”

They soon arrived at a great dark house in the centre of Poultney Square. Sherlock took the axe and, blending into the shadows, bid John knock.

John knocked loudly, and soon there appeared a big, clean-shaven, bald man with a large, red face, pendulous cheeks, and an air of general benevolence which was belied by a cruel, vicious mouth.

“Where’s Frankie?” asked John accusingly.

“I don’t know any Frankie.”

“Let me in. I know you have her here.”

“Bugger off. This is a house of mourning.” He tried to close the door, but John jammed herself into it.

“Did you kill her?!”

“FUCK OFF! My wife just died!” He turned his head, and John saw the ragged shell of an ear.

“You just don’t know how to pick ‘em, do you, Peters?”

“Bloody hell! Sherlock Holmes!”

He disappeared into the house.

Sherlock and John followed.

Sherlock flew up the stairs in pursuit of Peters, but John turned her head and spied a covered wooden coffin in the front room on a stand. She ran to it and raised the axe high.

“No, John!” cried Sherlock, looking down. “AARGH!”

Peters struck Sherlock from behind.

The two were wrestling at the top of the stairs. John didn’t know what to do. She first ran towards Sherlock, who gurgled and waved her arms.

“No! Alive! Inside!”

John’s eyes widened, and she raced back to the coffin to pry the lid off with the axe blade.

A chemical smell struck John hard, but she shook it off and stared.

Two bodies.

There were two bodies in the coffin.

“Two bodies! There are two bodies in the coffin! And one of them is her!”

John leaned in and checked Frankie’s pulse and breathing.

“She is still alive but barely!”

Then John checked the other body.

“This other one is dead. His wife?”

John reached in to lift Frankie out of the coffin when Phillip Green burst into the house.

“FRANKIE!”

John looked up to see Sherlock and Holy Peters each with their hands ‘round the other’s throat.

“Take her,” ordered John, and surprisingly, Phillip Green did as he was bid.

John grabbed the axe and raced up the stairs.

By the time she reached the top, Holy Peters and Sherlock had rolled to the right end of the hall. Holy Peters had Sherlock pinned to the ground and his boot was pressed Sherlock’s head.

“SHERLOCK!”

John flew towards Sherlock, but Sherlock waved weakly and sputtered,

“Last! Left!”

John turned towards the other end of the hall.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

A hand grabbed John by the hair. Then another closed ‘round her neck. Why was it always the neck, John thought. Didn’t anybody punch anymore?

The axe fell from John’s hands, and just how close it came to cutting off her toes, she never knew.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Mister Peters,” said a voice behind John, an icy-cold, bespoke-suit, double Albert watch chain, undead-and-loving-it voice.

Mycroft.

“I oughtta known! The other one!” Peters roared.

The hand loosened just enough for John to squirm away. She seized the fallen axe and scrambled down the hall, hurling herself into the last room on the left.

It looked like Sherlock’s bedroom: bare, save for the wooden box on a stand.

This time, John didn’t hesitate.

_WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!_

“AAARGH!”

John ignored the cries of agony without and kept swinging the axe until the coffin was in splinters.

Panting, she stepped back into the hall just in time to see Mycroft and Sherlock carrying Holy Peters’ body down the stairs.

John watched from the stairs as Sherlock and Mycroft deposited the body in the coffin. Phillip Green was crouched beside the sofa where he’d laid the unconscious body of Lady Frances Carfax.

“Ambulance is on the way. But who are you?” growled Phillip Green. He rose and strode towards Mycroft menacingly.

“Who is this, Sherlock?” asked Mycroft.

“The blighter who hurt John,” replied Sherlock curtly.

_WHAM!_

John never saw the blow, but Phillip Green crumpled to the floor. She went downstairs and passed by his motionless body and joined Sherlock at the sofa.

“Dehydration,” observed Sherlock. “Lack of food. Exposure to cold. A few defensive wounds. Sedatives. Peters has been keeping her captive for many days. Then the chloroform, very old fashioned, that. She can go to hospital or…”

“Can we take her to Baker Street, Sherlock? Can you, you know, do what you did for me when I was in hospital, you know, heal her?”

“You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?”

Sherlock shrugged. “It’s rather intimate. Yes, but I can’t travel with both of you at once.”

“When I’m finished, I’ll escort John home,” said Mycroft blithely.

Sherlock looked over her shoulder and shot a hard look at Mycroft.

“Very well,” she said with obvious reluctance. “Don’t tarry.” She kissed John’s cheek. Then she scooped Lady Frances up in her arms.

When they were gone, John walked towards Mycroft and peered down into the coffin.

“I owe you a debt of gratitude, Doctor Watson.”

“How’s that?”

“You did what I desired to do and, despite all my powers, could not do.”

Mycroft drew a single, gloved finger down the woman’s cheek, the only expanse of skin not stained with blood or hidden by the hulking figure on top of her. “He definitely had a type,” she said with a thick voice that John didn’t recognise.

“She reminds you of someone?” asked John.

One corner of Mycroft’s mouth twitched.

“Yes. By vampire standards, I was very young, and I still didn’t understand much about myself or the world of which I and Sherlock had become parts. The process of removing an enthrallment, demonic, vampiric, of any kind, really is much more difficult and delicate than I foolishly supposed. And the price for failure is, well, grave.”

In spite of herself, John huffed at the pun.

“Forgive me, Doctor. It is difficult for a vampire not to indulge in a bit of gallows humour, but I would suggest you avert you gaze at this point.”

“You’re going to drink from him?”

Mycroft grimaced. “No. I may not have Sherlock’s extraordinarily prescriptive taste, but I am definitely not tempted by demonic plonk. I’m going to drain him. To the very last drop. Until he and his last victim are swimming in it. And then I’m going to settle a very old score and stab him through the heart which he does not possess.”

The coldness of Mycroft’s tone seeped into John, and she shook her head slowly.

“I want to watch. Whatever he is, he kidnapped and tortured my friend—all for money.”

Mycroft didn’t argue. “As you wish,” she said softly.

John did watch, with horror and fascination, as Mycroft transformed. Her body grew. Her head, too, disproportionately so. Her neck curled forward, and pointy incisors emerged from rows of razor-looking teeth.

She looked like a hideous alien, a true monster. And she acted like something between a surgeon and a butcher.

She slit his throat. She slit his wrists. She slit his inner thighs through the material of his trousers.

And the blood bubbled forth, not in any human way that John, as a doctor, recognised, but rather like water from a fountain. The slits in the body were like taps, and the coffin filled like a bathtub. John watched the woman disappear beneath the rising tide and the large hulking figure, buoyed, and began to float.

And John found herself not sick or sad or numb.

She was glad.

She was glad that there was one less source of misery in the world and that no one else would suffer for this particular creature’s greed.

“Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?” she remarked when Mycroft stepped back and resumed to her old shape.

Both corners of Mycroft’s mouth twitched.

“Indeed, Doctor Watson. Demons are extraordinarily…”

“Sanguine?” suggested John.

Mycroft made a noise that might have been mirthful.

“Is it…?” began John, studying the depth of the blood. The coffin was, she noticed, surprisingly leak-proof. “Does it happen to be, well, seven inches of blood? Like, you know, how LeFanu’s Carmilla died? In her coffin in seven inches of blood? Sherlock said you both liked the story. I like it, too.”

Mycroft turned her head. She was smiling.

“You know, just between ourselves, Doctor Watson, I think you would make an excellent vampire.”

Despite Mycroft’s lighthearted tone, John stepped back and raised her hands defensively.

“Oh, no,” continued Mycroft hastily. “Don’t worry. Sherlock would never forgive me, and quite frankly, mine has never been much of an evangelising nature.”

John turned and looked about the room. “Do you need a stake?”

“Yes. Let us finish this business. Sherlock is, no doubt, growing insupportable in your prolonged absence, and while I don’t find that objectionable in and of itself, it would probably be disadvantageous for the wellbeing of your friend.”

“How ‘bout here?”

John went to the sofa; with Mycroft’s help, she turned it on its side.

Mycroft wrenched a board from the wooden sofa frame.  She grew again until she could loom over the coffin with ease.

John watched her raise the stake and drive it in.

There was a long, low moan that rattled the window panes.

“It is done,” said Mycroft, and with a Mary Poppins-ish wave of her arms, the lid was on the coffin and the room, and perhaps the whole house, John supposed, was set to rights.

Mycroft extended a hand to John. “Come, Doctor Watson. Back to Baker Street.”

“What about him?” John nodded toward the crumpled heap of Phillip Green.

Mycroft gazed down and tilted her head. Just then, a siren could be heard in the distance.

“We’ll let the proper authorities deal with him.” 

 

 

 


	5. The End.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for off-screen murder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the enthusiasm for this petered out. It is still a challenge for me to judge the half-life of a fic idea. This one was borne out of all the unpleasantness and hatred that is surrounding US politics at the moment and my own rage at the world. I hope you enjoyed it.

“Did you introduce yourself?” asked John.

“I didn’t need to,” replied Sherlock. “She recognised me at once.”

“Ormond,” called a weak voice.

John smiled and went to the sofa, where Lady Frances Carfax lay, propped up on a mountain of pillows.

John sat on the edge of coffee table and said, “Lady_F. It’s quite nice to meet you.”

Lady Frances gave a feeble smile. “I believe I owe you some art in addition to my undying gratitude.”

“You’ll have plenty of time for that,” said John.

“Sherringford didn’t tell me much, but she did mention you’re a doctor.”

“True. We’ll take you to hospital if you prefer, but you’re also welcome to stay here.” John looked over her shoulder.

Sherlock nodded. “Reverend Schlessinger is dead.”

“Good,” said Lady Frances. “He killed Christina.” She shuddered, then looked about the room. “I’d like to stay, even if it is just long enough to hear the whole story of how you two came to find me.”

“Maybe after you rest?” suggested John. “You need fluids and nourishment, too.”

Lady Frances nodded, sank further into the pillows, and closed her eyes. “I feel safe here and strangely,” her brow furrowed, “buoyed.”

“You are,” said Sherlock.

* * *

“What a fool I was,” said Lady Frances bitterly. “I hardly knew them. Here I’d never think of going off to another country with people I just met but when you live as I do, or as I did, lost, as often as not in a maze of obscure _pensions_ and boardinghouses, you make allowances. And I quite liked Christina. Me and my damned heirlooms,” she pronounced the word with thick reproach, “I told myself ‘What’s the point of pretty things if no one—including I—ever see them?’ Oh, God, I was a stray chicken in a world of foxes and if you hadn't come for me, I would have been gobbled up and hardly missed. I haven’t family. Or friends.”

“That’s not true,” said John quickly. “You have me and Sherringford, such as she is—”

“Where is she?”

“Sleeping. She’s, uh, nocturnal.”

“Oh. I suppose that makes sense, being a private detective.”

“Marie likes you.”

“Marie likes everyone.”

“You also have Dobney,” I added gently.

“Oh, Dobney!” Her face softened. “God, Ormond, how have made such a blessed muck of things? Do you ever feel that you might be cursed?”

“I did. I got shot in Afghanistan, then I got hit by a car.”

“Good Lord!”

“But then I met Sherringford and things got more interesting. And it’s easy to look back and judge yourself harshly for the decisions you made. I do it all the time. It’s so easy to forget, you’re doing it already, but you didn’t go off with the Schlessingers on whim. There was a reason.”

“You met him?”

“Yes. He tried to strangle me.”

She shook her head slowly. “My last thought, after Christina was dead but before I lost consciousness, was that I’d always assumed it would be Phil who killed me. Part of me is so tired. I just want to give in. After all, how bad could it be? Is being Phillip Green’s wife or lover or whatever worse than running away and living in fear, never knowing if he’s just around the corner?”

“Lady Frances…”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Ormond, call me Frankie!”

“And my name’s John and Sherringford is Sherlock. What do you want to happen to Phillip Green?”

“I want him to go away and never contact me ever again. But he won’t! And the police won’t help until he does something horrid, and I’ve had all I can take of horrid for the moment!”

Her voice was shrill, and she buried her face in her hands.

“Sherlock and I can make him go away.”

“Threats don’t work. Ask Dobney. He won’t stop. He. Will. Not. Stop.”

“I am not talking about threats.”

Her hands dropped.

John handed her a tissue. “You can take my word for it or you can see for yourself.”

“The risk…”

John pressed her lips together and shrugged. “The risk is not as grave as you’re presuming.”

“Like Schlessinger?”

John nodded.

“It would be…” Her gaze drifted round the room. “…but I’d be free.” She sighed. “Sherring—that is, Sherlock is quite something else, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she’s something else all right.”

Lady Frances gave a half-smile. “And this place, I can’t describe it.””

“The flat has a certain restorative energy. I suggest you not leave until your strength within these walls is equal to your strength beyond them. Maybe a few days or as much as week. And don’t worry about Phillip Green until you’re ready. The landlady is a troll, and she’s under strict orders to admit no one. And the security system is, well, out of this world. So, make yourself at home, everything but Sherlock’s bedroom. Mine’s upstairs. I slipped out early this morning.”

She went to a shopping bag and produced a packet of coloured pencils and a sketchbook.

“Oh, Or—I mean—”

“Call me whatever blessed thing you like,” said John.

“Whoever you are, are hugs between online friends accepted?”

“Yes!” cried John and rushed to the open arms of the frail figure, embracing her gently but warmly.

There was a cough behind them. John broke away. She turned, staunching tears.

“Forgive the interruption,” said Sherlock. “Tea?”

“Yes,” they replied.

“Capital. John?”

* * *

John opened her eyes. In the darkness, she could barely make out Sherlock’s silhouette. Her eyes went to the sofa.

“She’s sleeping,” said Sherlock.

“Did you tell her what you are?”

“No, but she’s not stupid. We talked about Phillip Green.”

“Where is he, Sherlock?”

“Remanded for psychiatric evaluation. But he will be released soon enough.”

“He will come for her.”

“He will try.”

“I watched Mycroft kill Schlessinger.”

“I know.”

“I liked it. How horrible is that? A doctor enjoying death. You could argue that Schlessinger wasn’t human, but Phillip Green very much is. But he’s a horrible human being, one person, but a source of such misery. Part of me wants to watch him suffer, wants to watch him die. If I or you or Frankie explained to him how much he is hurting her, would he understand? Is he capable of understanding anything other that his own selfishness and his own hatred and his own expressions of anger? Does he see her as a human being or just an extension of himself, a tool to be used for his own gratification? He will never repent or apologise or feel any shame for the way he’s treated her.”

“She wants to watch.”

“I suppose it can’t be any more horrific than being shut up in a coffin with a dead body.”

“Thankfully, she doesn’t remember that part.”

“Not now, at least. Oh, Sherlock! I took an oath.”

“You live with a vampire. And when a doctor goes wrong, _he_ is the first of criminals. But _she_?”

John heard the smirk in Sherlock’s voice, but then her tone turned somber.

“He will harm her, John.”

“And I cannot let Frankie go through it alone.” John exhaled. “You know, there may someone else who wants to be in the audience.”

* * *

“Is that Mendelssohn?” asked John.

“No,” said Sherlock.

John hummed. “Sounds like Mendelssohn.”

The volume of the activity in the floor below rose slightly and so did the not-Mendelssohn.

John smiled at the ceiling. “Who knew that the murder of your stalker was such an aphrodisiac?”

“Not for you,” observed Sherlock. She laid beside John on John’s bed atop the smooth bedclothes. Her arm was bent in a triangle, head cradled in hand.

“He wasn’t _my_ stalker, but, no, I’m not feeling very…”

“It’s all right.”

They didn’t speak for a while, then John said,

“I suppose she’ll leave tomorrow.”

“Yes, I expect so.”

“Just in time. I’d hate to have to explain…”

“John, it’s ludicrous of me to say, but really, truly, you needn’t give me your blood if you don’t wish to.”

“If I don’t snap out of this funk in time, I’ll just collect it and give it to you. But, Sherlock, in the end…”

“You helped a friend when she desperately needed help, John. And I’m not just talking about Lady Frances. Mycroft is also quite grateful for the opportunity to right an old wrong.”

John nodded and snuggled closer to Sherlock and said no more.

* * *

“What’s that?” asked John, nodding to the square wrapped in brown paper.

“Payment for services rendered,” said Sherlock. “The Lady Frances Carfax case.”

“Payment?”

“In art.” Sherlock tore off the paper.

“Oh, my God!” cried John.

Sherlock grinned. “It’s called ‘ _Woman being eat out by a vampire after midnight, Regent’s Park.’”_

John giggled. “You know, she’s quite good.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

John stared at the picture.

“Sherlock…”

“Hmm?”

“I’m thinking…”

“Yes?”

“If you’re keen…”

“Mm?”

“Take out the cup and have you feed from the source?”

“Well, hurrah for the power of art,” rumbled Sherlock as she laced her fingers in John’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
